News, Notes and Photos from the Field (Craig and Pamelia's Blog)

For those of you who missed it, I wanted to let you know that the Bar Harbor Times did a wonderful feature this week on Pamelia and her tidal photography. The photo above is of one of the blood sea stars she saw the morning she went out into our bay with reporter Laurie Schreiber.

A controversy is developing over a section of that bay not far from our house. A man wants to turn it into a 50-acre oyster farm that could produce as many as 10 million oysters a year. One local newspaper noted that the proposal "has shoreland owners in the area hotter than the horseradish in a good cocktail sauce." The farm, which uses cages that float, would lower the property values and mar the pristine views of those living on the waterfront. The environmental impact isn't clear yet, but opponents have raised concerns about the disruption of the ecosystem. I will keep you posted on the proposal, which seems likely to be approved because the state guidelines don't consider aesthetics and property-value losses and dismiss environmental concerns unless they involve threats to a specific rare species.